Let's begin with an honest, painful admission
The late writer and lecturer Lois Mark Stalvey, in her later years, taught a course on racism at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. She opened every class with a simple but stunning declaration: “I am a racist.”
If anybody could cop a plea to being free from racism, Stalvey should be at the front of the line. She dedicated most of her life to fighting racism and other forms of prejudice. Author of an outstanding book called “The Education of a WASP,” Stalvey was the subject of a 1974 Time magazine feature story that referred to the former Philadelphia resident’s work as “a remarkable chronicle of a white family’s confrontation with inner-city schools and a harsh indictment of an educational system that is a disaster for most of its pupils.”
Stalvey understood that the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. She was an inspiration to many not just because she was so observant; she was admired because she was so honest. Yes, she was a racist. As are you. As are we all.
The human package comes with standard equipment including biases and prejudices that require a lifetime of adjustments trying to recognize and improve. Racism lives in all shapes, sizes and colors. But it’s there in every one of us.
Our nation isn’t alone in its struggles with racism. Candid talks about Brexit often peel the skin back on a racist skeleton. In some British citizens’ estimation, Brexit was a national referendum on keeping non-whites the hell out of the kingdom.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made headlines when he proclaimed the Black Lives Matter movement is “inherently racist.” Probably nobody was surprised when Vice President Joe Biden criticized Giuliani’s comment, but when former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke, it seemed everybody was listening. Gingrich was quoted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution as saying, “It took me a long time, and a number of people talking to me through the years to get a sense of this. If you are a normal white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America, and you instinctively under-estimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.”
Some of you reading this editorial have lived as a minority somewhere in your life. That gave you a bitter taste of this important topic. If you’ve been discriminated against, overtly or otherwise, you have at least some small sense of the pain that many black Americans feel every single day of their lives. So it has been with Jews for eons. So it is today with Muslims in America.
Stalvey was right, and the only way we’re going to change the nation’s racist nature is by starting with an honest admission from every single one of us.